BEIJING — Beijing has invested heavily in research and development, with the total R&D expenditure of large and medium-sized major enterprises surging 17.6 percent to 150 billion yuan (about $22 billion) in the first eight months of this year.

Among the total expenditure, the city's key enterprises in the information transmission, software and IT service sectors spent 110.9 billion yuan on R&D from January to August, up 24 percent year-on-year, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics.

The R&D expenditure of industrial enterprises increased by 6.2 percent year-on-year to 22.85 billion yuan during the same period, the bureau said on its website.

The large and medium-sized major enterprises in the city had a total of 124,000 valid patents by the end of August, up 21.4 percent year-on-year.